Biden, Warren Stall as Hillary Widens Lead in Latest Poll

Although a recent McClatchy poll showed that Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren were gaining traction in the 2016 Democratic nomination race, a new Quinnipiac poll has found that the Warren campaign has stalled and Biden has fallen below double-digit support for the first time since polling began.

The poll, conducted between December 3 and December 9, sampled 1,095 registered Democrats, the largest sample size of any national Democratic nomination poll by far since polling began. As expected, Hillary Clinton continues to own a dominant 66 percent of the vote (she has been polling at 64-67 percent since the summer) but her lead grew to 58 points as the opposition weakened.

Vice President Joe Biden, a longshot candidate to say the least, had been polling at 10-12 percent consistently since the summer. Biden finished second to Clinton once again, but this time with just 8 percent of the vote.

Elizabeth Warren, whose support steadily grew from 4 percent to 7 percent to 9 percent in the most recent polls, found herself back at 7 percent, but just one point back of the VP. If Warren can pull ahead of Biden, she could regain some of that lost traction as the main alternative to the current Democratic frontrunner.

As usual, none of the other potential Democratic candidates really made a dent. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received 3 percent of the vote, right where he has been since polling began. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer both received 1 percent of the vote. Twelve percent of respondents remain undecided.

Biden’s candidacy is held back by his controversial nature. Just 37 percent of all voters polled said they had a favorable opinion of the Vice President. Just 70 percent of Democrats had a favorable opinion of him (compared with 92 percent for Hillary) while 79 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independents had an unfavorable opinion of the Veep.

On the other hand, Warren, who has become a darling of the progressive youth movement, continues to suffer from a lack of name recognition. Sixty-three percent of all respondents said they didn’t know enough about the freshman Senator to have a favorable or unfavorable view, including 59 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents, and 70 percent of Republicans.

About the author

Igor Derysh is Editor-at-Large at XN Sports, a staff writer at Latest, and a syndicated columnist whose work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Baltimore Sun, and Orlando Sun Sentinel, and AOL News. His work has been criticized in even more publications. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.